Night time toilet training

DD1 is 4 in April. she is fully toilet trained during the day but still wears a nappy at night. Her nappy is never dry in the morning, and she still has milk before bedtime which she loves. I also feel like we've only spent the last 6 or so months with her sleeping through so the thought of getting up to help her go to the toilet is not very appealing. I don't know whether I should force the night time toilet training or wait till she's ready? She has only just started sleeping with her door open but we haven't said anything to her about getting up in the night to go to the toilet.

I don't tend to think of night time continence as training, I've got an 8 yo who is now having some dry nights and I think it is happening now (vs at 4) because she can take some responsibility to drink more in the day (to stretch her bladder) and because her body is maturing enough to not produce as much urine at night.So dd will probably have a 4-6 yr gap btn day dryness and night.I don't wake her to wee at night, it doesn't work as she will get up in her sleep and of course not do it if I don't do it.What's the point?I'd rather both of us sleep.I've wasted a lot of worry on this issue over the years because of the idea that she "should" be night dry and that it's my responsibility to ensure it happens. Thing is that this is about her body, not mine and it is not abnormal to not be night dry at this age. I'll probably think of a few strategies before this years school camp but apart from that I just let her be. She is not bothered about it though, she know's she is not the only child to not be ready to be night dry as yet. She'll get there in her own time, not mine.All the best.

My DD only became dry at night at 4yo (her 2 years younger borther cracked it before she did!).

Dont worry about their age- their brain, their bladder etc will all develop at their own pace.

What I would be doing now is just reinforcing that wees should go in the toilet, no matter if its day or night. Ask her to try not to put the wees in her nappy but when she first wakes up, to do her morning wees in the toilet (call mummy if help needed). I wouldnt be getting her up in the night to wee as (IMHO) it sets up a bad habit of needing to get up in the night.

Night dryness involves a lot of processes - the ability of the brain to recognise the sensation of needing to wee and to be able to wake the sleeping body/mind, the bladder needs to be big enough to hold the night time urine produced, the body also needs to learn how to concentrate the urine.

Perhaps start reducing the amount of milk she has &/or giving it to her a bit earlier before bed.

I would like to echo the comments of PPs. Night time training is very different from daytime training. Is there a particular reason why you want to rush her out of nappies at night?

My DD was 5.5 yo before she was fully night trained. She simply wasn't ready, and I didn't really see the need to rush her...she wasn't sleeping over at friends' places, and I much preferred having her in nappies than having to change the sheets in the middle of the night.

I would wait until you notice a recurring pattern of dry nappies in the morning before even contemplating taking them away. Getting up to change the sheets in the middle of the night is never a great experience for parent or child.

We are in the midst of it with our DS (4.5yo) & we find that the power of suggestion/positive discussion about the actual mechanics of how his body works really helps. (he is a bit of a science nut).We discuss with him most nights how the bladder is like a balloon and can expand and get bigger and bigger, we talk about how it can hold all the wee that gets produced over night and in the morning he can hold on till he gets to the toilet ... we explain where it is in the body, and what it is for. and we have borrowed a kids book about wee from the library - i think it all helps .

and a chart with achievable rewards (my DS's currency at the moment is Trashies)

Do it when she is ready. My DS2 only just started going to bed without a nappy last month & he turned 4 this week. How I wound up testing to see if no nappy at night was the right step was because he had woken up a week in a row with a dry nappy. He's only had 2 accidents so far, so it's going good.

I would suggest, if you want to get her started, I'd stop the drinks after dinner (maybe only sips & not a full cup) and toilet time before bed. Other than that, just wait & see. My DS is not at the stage of getting up at night to go to the toilet (hence the accidents) but I don't feel that's a big thing at 4, they learn that as they get older. My DS1 was about 5-6 when he started getting up at night to go.

My dd is such a heavy sleeper that I'm not sure she would wake to go. I limit her drinks before bedtime and just before we go to bed around 1030 we get her up and put her on the toilet. SHe then sleeps through without any problems. Works for us.

You cannot TRAIN a child to be dry at night. It is a physicological thing. Basically there are couple of neural and hormonal pathways that need to be mature. these then allow 1. the body to concentrate urine overnight and hence decrease volume and 2. "wake" the body when the bladder is full. Limiting fluids and/or waking the child to go to the toilet does not speed up the process.

There is nothing you can do to hasten this. You just need to wait until they are dry. We had the rule in this house that if you had 5 nights in a row of dry nappies, then we would stop wearing them. I have had one dry overnight at 2.5yrs (daytime TT 2 weeks earlier), one 7.5 yrs (daytime TT at 2) and one at 3.5 (daytime trained at 2.5).

There is an hereditary component to night wetting so if you or your partner were later, chances are your kids will be as well. Our local bedwetting clinic will not even talk to you until your child is 7.

ETA: when DD3 was night time dry, she was still having a bottle of milk at bedtime(sometimes 2) , and usually one during the night sometime (yes, bad habit but it's all sorted not )

Hi OP,Here is a link that explains the physiology of TT, and night training. It is most definitely not something you have control over so I would just let her wear a nappy until she starts waking up dry.Good luck.

Generally I agree that if they are ready they are ready and there is not much you can do about this.

However, for some children, and my DD was among them, you need to take the nappy away and put up with a few nights of wet beds and then they become dry.

DD had never had a dry nappy when she asked to stop wearing them overnight at 3.5. She wet the bed every night for 2 weeks and then stopped and never wet again. She is now 6.5.

DS on the other hand was more typical. At 3 he suddenly had dry nappies every morning for a week and so I took them away. Interestingly, he still sometimes wets the bed, although it is a rare occurrence now at age 5.

So I don't agree that there is a one size fits all solution. If your child is keen and you are willing to put up with some wet beds then you can try going without the nappy for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

I've never restricted bedtime drinks or woken them to go to the toilet. And my kids rarely need to go to the loo overnight either.

They are all different. My 6 year old is only recently dry at night. In fact, he and his 2.5 year old brother both started wearing undies to bed on the same night. I just waited until he was consistently dry in the morning. He sleeps so heavily that he needed his bladder to last all night before he was dry. It just took this long for him.

I don't think it is a big deal and it never bothered me. I am pretty happy that we are now a nappy free house though!

I don’t know why people call it night time training when it’s not really training at all. They have no control of what happens to their bodies at night so pushing them unnecessarily to try and be dry can only cause tears and frustrations. I wouldn’t push it. only two thirds of children are dry during night time before their 5th birthday. It is normal for some kids to be wet up to 7-9 years old.

My DD was daytime trained for 4 months before night time clicked with her. For 2 weeks she had woken bone dry and had been waking herself using the potty overnight but before ditching nappies I wanted to be sure. Been a month now of no nighttime nappy and no accidents yet (touch wood) - we reduced liquid around bedtime and re-enforced if she needed help in the night to call for mummy if needed. She clicked with oiled training really well and fast. She was three when she started TT and note self paced, she set the cues and we followed. In all there were only two accidents and they were in the first two days of starting outright. Good luck.

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